Dr. Bouchey is the Chief Professional & Continuing Education (PACE) Officer at the University of Vermont. As one of the longest-standing PACE units in higher education, the team serves the institution offering high-quality online and hybrid non- and degree offerings in collaboration with the university’s academic units and institutes, workforce development, and lifelong learning opportunities to Vermont residents and beyond. Dr. Bouchey holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University at Albany, an M.B.A. in Entrepreneurship from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a Doctorate in Education from Northeastern University. Her research interests include the nature and future of organizational structures of online units in institutions of higher education, as well as inventive and high-impact pedagogical practice in online teaching, inclusive of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
The contemporary higher education landscape has witnessed a remarkable surge in the number of students turning towards online programming in recent years, and instead of these learners only flocking to the mega online universities more and more are turning to institutions that were traditionally focused on residential programming. In the last few years, we are seeing some of the largest public institutions enter and succeed in online programming. With these trends in mind, institutions dedicated to serving rural America have discovered an opportunity to fulfill their mission.
As freshman incoming first-year student populations at various colleges and universities across the United States are analyzed, a resurgence is being observed in the growth rates in comparison to the immediate post-pandemic era. Undeniably, this is an encouraging development, particularly for community colleges and public institutions. However, its implications cannot be fully understood without factoring in the distressingly consistent decline in college attendance rates over the last decade, with a dip marked at over 10%, equivalent to three million less learners.
More alarming is the situation in rural America, where the decline is observed to be between 3-14% higher. The heavy truth is that the enrollment numbers in higher education have significantly decreased in comparison to those from a decade ago, with certain rural zones witnessing a decrease of over 20%. Rural learners are being left behind at startling rates when it comes to post-secondary attainment.
Numerous studies have indicated that regions with low to no post-secondary attendance rates can experience lower rates of voting, higher rates of public assistance utilization, and may even experience shorter life expectancies. The broader societal repercussions aside, catering to rural students in states with high rates of rural designation, like Vermont (64.9%), Maine (61%), and Mississippi (50.5%), holds paramount importance for the long-term vitality of the states as well.
Institutions endowed with the responsibility to address their state’s needs through teaching and research, under the Morrill Act(s) and the Smith-Lever Act, should view online education as a crucial gateway to serve rural communities. Not only does this align with the mission of land-grant institutions, but implementing online programming to cater to rural learners is also a critical step towards ensuring the long-term prosperity and health of rural states. Pairing the accessibility and flexibility of online and low residency program formats with the power of applied learning and partnering with the expertise and reach of Cooperative Extension Services, land grant institutions are uniquely positioned to serve this critical student population and contribute to the betterment of their states, as well as their institutions.
Like many calls-to-action, this one comes with caution as well, rural learners, like adult learners, are not your average first-time college going student and to serve them means to shift mindsets and to perhaps build new infrastructure to attract and retain them as well. Rural learners may be a unique to an institution because they often juggle multiple responsibilities such as family and work obligations and may also carry additional pre-enrollment risk factors with them such as financial instability and learning gaps leftover from their K-12 years. The idea of traveling hundreds of miles to attend in-person classes is also very infeasible for them.
Land grant institution online units should tap into their Cooperative Extension Service (“extension program”) to serve as low residency programming locations that can serve as sources of valuable insights into local communities for program need and design. This fruitful collaboration between online and extension to offer high-impact low residency programming can serve to address critical gaps in rural areas related to allied health, nursing, education, and agriculture, among others, thereby equipping students with skills pertinent to their communities and families.
And though land grant institutions may have a mission imperative and the affordances of an extension program to leverage, any institution interested in designing programs for this underserved student population should consider the following program and infrastructure attributes:
- Because rural learners may present with pre-enrollment risk factors and also because they will be likely learning at-a-distance, it is essential to design a frictionless enrollment and onboarding process that is scaffolded with education and individualized support (e.g., first generation college students may need additional support during the FAFSA process);
- Rural learners may also have learning gaps from their K-12 years, or they may be many years post high school graduation so that tutoring and student success coaching, designed for students learning from afar are critical to their success (e.g., an online student success coach who ensures that each of their learners successfully logs in and participates by Day 3 of their online course);
- Drawing either from the expertise and insights gained from an extension program or by market research, an emphasis on applied learning and programming that fills critical gaps in rural communities will contribute to better outcomes where learning is connected to the learner’s personal needs, but also contribute to the health of the learner’s community in the process;
- Programming should be scaffolded, not only within a course to draw on self-efficacy and growth mindset theories, but also in its actual design so that learners have different pathways into their education depending on their needs and the time they can dedicate ranging from non-credit, short-term credentials to non-degree and stackable certificates into degree programs; and
- Rural learners may need additional student support services such as well-being programs that will need to be accessed off-campus, as well as the rest of the campus functional areas (e.g., bursar, registration, etc.).
Ultimately, the full student journey from attraction all the way through to graduation should be evaluated not only from an online (or low residency) perspective, but also through the lens of the unique needs of a rural student and their community where the nexus of education and community health can serve as a platform for post-secondary attainment and goodwill.
No matter the institutional type, serving rural learners is vital not only to the vibrancy and health of a community and state, but to the nation. Empowering and educating more learners in our rural communities bridges critical gaps that left open continue to contribute to economic, social, and health disparities—let us all recognize this critical need and work to lift up our rural cities and towns.